Social Comparison

Self-image may be one of the most important aspects of a person’s life, and studying how people define their own self-worth has been one of the most sought after social-scientific topics in recent history. One major theory about how people define themselves is known at the Social Comparison Theory.

The social comparison theory basically states that people use comparisons between themselves and others to define their self image. Usually, (according to the theory) people use similar individuals as a comparison point for themselves. For example, a white female will compare her looks to other white females, and not to black males.

How people choose comparison points is one of the most complex variables of the Social Comparison Theory. Many ideas have been presented as to how comparison targets are selected, such as the thought that people in poor circumstances will look downward for a comparison target. This seems to make sense, as many people will feel better if they compare themselves to someone who is worse off. Another theory says that people select comparison targets subconsciously, without a deliberate selection process. This theory is new compared to most, but has merits; it is hard to imagine most people consciously thinking to themselves, “I will compare myself to that person and that person, but not him and not her”.

I find the Social Comparison Theory to be a very worthwhile idea, especially the thought that people compare themselves to similar people, because I have often found myself making comparisons between my own abilities, both physical and mental, compared to the abilities of similar others. When I go to the gym to exorcize, for instance, I often find myself taking a mental note of how much other men are lifting compared to me. I have always been relatively strong, and proud of my strength, and if it looks like I am lifting a heavier weight than the next man, I feel good about myself. If he is lifting more than me, I feel slightly self-conscious. I cannot recall making a comparison between my lifting abilities and the lifting abilities of a woman. On the other hand, I have never been a fast runner, nor have I ever had the endurance for running long distances. If someone runs faster and longer than me (which they often do), it does not bother me because this is not my area of pride. (If I see someone running longer and faster, I often think about how I could lift more than they could.) Also, I have never found myself comparing my running abilities to the running abilities of women, because that would not be a similar comparison.

I also feel that Social Comparison Theory can be applied to people’s reception of media images, not just other people. It seems that people will use media images as a comparison point in the same manner they use other people. And again, if these media images are not of a similar variety, people will reject them just as they will reject comparisons of people are not similar.

Although heavily related the Third Person Theory, Melissa A. Milkie’s study about how young girls are impacted by media messages can also be applied to the Social Comparison Theory. According to Milkie’s studies, when asked how important it is to read magazines directed towards teenage girls, white girls reported a higher level of importance than black girls. One of the reasons black girls reported is a perception of these magazines as being directed towards white girls, and rarely showing images of similar looking black girls. I think this was an example of Social Comparison Theory at play, only instead of comparisons applied to other people; the comparisons were applied to media images. The black girls, having no similar references in the teen magazines, did not find it important to read these items. In other words, these magazines held no social comparisons for them, and were therefore unimportant. On the other side, the magazines did have social comparisons for the white girls, and were therefore perceived to have value.

One Response

Don Stacks’ “Focus Group” reading provides information on how focus groups are assembled and conducted. He also details why focus groups are a popular method to conduct research for PR use. “The focus group is found in public relations primarily because it can be conducted quickly and fairly inexpensively,” (Stacks, 2009). Another major reason that focus groups are often exercised is to potentially better understand the results of a survey. He writes that a more in-depth analysis of a given survey is generally the by-product of a focus group, in which information from a variety of people can often explain dissimilarities in survey data (2009). Despite the love that focus groups regularly receive, Stacks warns the reader of some of the data stemming from them. Most focus groups contain volunteer subjects, who have volunteered for the fact that they are interested in the survey. “In most focus group situations, at least two and often three different focus groups are conducted to ensure that what one group says is similar to what a second group says,” (Stacks, 2009). If the research question is not tailored in a way to evoke responses representative of a certain demographic or psychographic, only then can the data be effectively measured.

Chapter three of “Polling and the Public” is about similar issues in focus group surveys. In it, Asher describes the impact of context and wording in focus group questioning. According to Asher, (2007) question wording is probably the most familiar pitfall to consumers regarding public opinion research. As a rule of thumb, conductors of surveys should avoid questions that contain double negatives at all costs. “Seemingly straightforward questions that employ relatively simple language can seem ambiguous to some respondents,” (Asher, 57-58). Confusion or discontent with question wording can often lead to responses unreflective of volunteers’ actual feelings.

I recall having some of my own discontent regarding some questions that were asked to me in a focus group that I took part in last year. For extra credit in my psychology class, I chose to attend a focus group held by members of a local television program. The network was a broadcaster of a wide range of music news and music videos. Joined by about ten others, we watched a host of music video clips and later filled out a questionnaire about what we thought of them. For the most part, the questions seemed relevant to the topic at hand, but some of them did not seem so. For instance, we were asked how we felt about the clothing and the level of provocation regarding the individuals in the music videos shown. I found these questions to be rather irrelevant because as broadcasters of the videos, they do not produce each video, and so the questions seemed more suited for a survey regarding the actual production of the videos. It was disinteresting to me to answer how I felt about these issues because the network should choose to show videos from genres and artists that they desire, regardless of the content, I feel.

Frank Luntz writes in his pollingreport.com column titled, “Voices of Victory,” about the usefulness of focus group research in politics. According to Luntz, (1994) focus groups are so important to today’s politics because unlike traditional quantitative research, focus groups are concerned with understanding attitudes, instead of simply measuring them. No other president in history in United States history has been more committed to focus group research than Bill Clinton, Luntz writes (1994). One of his more popular focus group studies was conducted to see how potential voters would respond to the knowledge that President Clinton “dodged the draft” during the Vietnam War- information that was not at that time known to most of the general public. Clinton’s political supporters found that most respondents that claimed they would vote for him prior to this knowledge still would vote for him in the upcoming election. However, roughly 6% of the respondents from this group admitted that they now opposed the idea of voting Clinton into presidency (Luntz, 2009). In looking at these results, it is understandable that Clinton, as well as his political supporters, largely remained as secretive to this fact as possible, so that his poll results could be as favorable as possible. During President Clinton’s first year in office, his pollster conducted more focus groups than those of Bush in Bush’s first four years as president.